


all's well that ends well to end up with you

by hogwarts



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Post-How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, as in some yelling but only because they love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23417170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hogwarts/pseuds/hogwarts
Summary: Astrid and Hiccup have some things to talk out before their wedding.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> fix-it fic of sorts for that time they forgot to resolve the subplot in THW where Astrid didn't want to get married except she did or did she ok no yes ❤️

The forge was one of the first buildings they finished, the first to really belong to New Berk alone. It made sense to start there, since so much of what they’d had needed to be replaced and rebuilt– their houses, their weaponry, their ships. Their dragon-dependent infrastructure. Their prosthetic legs. So it was a little like the rest of their town had grown from that forge, like all the other huts and houses had sprung out of the warmth that glowed there, Berk’s old heart still beating on its new island.

Having a blacksmith for a chief probably didn’t hurt either, thought Astrid as she watched Hiccup bring down his hammer against his metalwork. She’d ducked inside to hide from Berk and its endless supply of things that needed to be done, and now that she was here she was wondering why she hadn’t stopped by earlier, wondering how she could ever have been thinking about something other than what Hiccup looked like when he was working. Hiccup, the roll of his shoulders beneath his tunic. Hiccup, sweat beading along his dark brow. Hiccup, muttering to himself in the depths of his rough voice, catching his lip between his teeth, his high cheekbones and the cut of his jaw and the knob of his throat lit starkly in the firelight–

He glanced up as she hopped up on his workbench, swinging her legs against its side. “Something need fixing, milady?”

“Nope.” She rested her chin in her hand. “Just enjoying the view.”

“One of New Berk’s most popular vista points, I hear.”

“That so?” She watched the muscles flexing in his forearm. “You get lots of pretty women in here, then?”

“Don’t tell my girlfriend.”

“Guess I’d better take all this in quick.”

“Ah, no need to tire yourself out.” He straightened, drawing the back of his hand across his brow. “You’ve got the rest of our lives to ogle me, hey?”

Astrid’s thoughts snagged. The rest of–

She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. They hadn’t talked about it again– not since the dragons left, not since they’d moved into their house, not since the stray comments from Tuffnut and Gobber had dwindled to zero. Astrid hadn’t been sure it was even on Hiccup’s mind anymore. It certainly wasn’t on hers. It was easier like that, to turn a blind eye to the feelings that might’ve turned her relationship with Hiccup into something complicated, to the things that slipped into her nightmares and followed her into the morning when she saw his face. So Astrid didn’t think about it. And she figured– she _hoped–_ that Hiccup hadn’t meant to put the idea in her head again _,_ that he was thinking about what he was tinkering with and not about what was coming out of his mouth. But she also knew that Hiccup was most truthful in his distracted comments, when earnest Hiccup did not have to compete with cautious Hiccup or smart-mouthed Hiccup or, the worst of the bunch, Chief Hiccup.

 _The rest of our lives._ Somebody else might not have read into it.

“So you’re still thinking about that,” said Astrid, as carefully as she could manage.

“ _That?”_

“Yeah. Us.” She gestured between them with a flick of her wrist. “You know.”

He watched her, brows lifting. “You mean getting married?”

“Yeah.”

“I…” He set down his hammer, turned his project over in his hands. She thought it might be a new attachment for his prosthetic. “Well, yeah, Astrid, of course I have. I mean– it’s time, maybe. Don’t you think?”

“That’s all?” Her voice felt thick in her throat. “It’s time?”

Hiccup blinked at her, bright eyes narrowing behind the dark sweep of his hair. “Yes? At least, _I_ think it’s a good time. It’s pretty peaceful now, people are mostly settled, we’re adjusting to living without the dragons–”

Something snapped in Astrid’s chest.

She slid down from the bench. “Look, Hiccup, I don’t want— I can’t be the second choice here.” 

He frowned. “I don’t think that, Astrid.”

“Other people might.”

“Right, because we’ve always cared about what other people think.” The corners of his mouth lifted uneasily in the joke, a swing and a miss, and it fanned the irritation flaring in her gut. 

“Maybe it’s time you start,” she replied shortly.

She looked away, regretting having started this conversation in the forge. It was Hiccup’s turf and she had nowhere to turn away to. Instead she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the work table.

“Astrid, I–” Hiccup swallowed, dry; she caught the jump of his throat in the dim light. “I didn’t ask to be leader. This chief stuff, people looking to me, this isn’t who I am. You know that. Look what I got us into, I mean—”

“Stop, Hiccup.” It came out sharpened, bitter. She bit the inside of her lip and willed her tone to soften. “You always say that, that it’s not who you are. And maybe it wasn’t, but it is now. No, don’t,” she said as his mouth opened again, “it _is_ , Hiccup. You’re our leader, our chief, whatever you want to call it. People respect you. That’s important. They need a steady leader, a dependable leader, somebody who will always be just where they need him to be and I...”

Her voice was rough in her throat. “I don’t know if I want to be part of that package.”

Hiccup looked at her for a long time, then down at the ground, shifting his weight from foot to prosthetic. “You don’t know if you still want to marry me,” was what he finally said, and something twisted painfully in Astrid’s chest.

Slowly she said, “I mean, do you still want to marry me?”

“Why would you ask that?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Well, I don’t know, Hiccup, maybe… You were always so busy with the dragons, with Toothless, with being chief, always with something else, and I’ve just never really been a priority with you. And I know that doesn’t mean you don’t love me, or whatever, but it just seemed like maybe…”

There was that furrow between his eyebrows, that spark in his eyes, and Astrid realized how suddenly this conversation had ballooned into an unlit cloud of Zippleback gas. She had never seen Hiccup look at her quite like this– like she’d just told him something impossible was happening, or maybe like she’d just slapped him across the face.

“Of course I want to marry you,” he said sharply. “Astrid, are you serious? Did you think I didn’t _want_ —?”

“I mean, it’s not like you ever asked.”

“We’ve been betrothed since we were _eighteen—_ ”

“It’s not the same. That’s not the same! If we get married it needs to be because we want to be married _now,_ not because we’re supposed to or because Gobber’s pressuring us or— or because the dragons are gone and it’s time to settle down—”

“That’s not what this is about.” His tone was jagged around its edges. “Like at _all.”_

Astrid pulled her lip between her teeth. “Isn’t it?”

“You were the one who didn’t want to, Astrid! _You_ were the one who was on about how we were _nowhere near ready for that, Hiccup, Gods no,_ how was I supposed to—”

“Because you _weren’t_ ready,” she said, a little desperately.

“I was!”

“You weren’t. And _I_ wasn’t ready to seal the deal on playing second fiddle to the dragons for the rest of my life–”

“ _Second fiddle?”_

“–and I don’t blame you because obviously you’ve got a lot on your plate, but you know what, so have I, so you really can’t blame me either for feeling like the second choice.”

“When have you ever been _second,_ Astrid, are you serious?”

“Oh, my mistake, I meant third or maybe fourth, although now that Toothless is gone maybe I have risen to second after all–”

_“Stop.”_

“You _let go!”_ she cried, and for a moment it was all still, her and Hiccup and the words hurled between them. Hiccup stared at her, disbelieving, as if she had driven a knife into his chest and twisted the handle. In that searing second Astrid hated him, and then she hated herself for that wounded look on his face. 

There was an unsettling calmness to his voice. “What?”

“With the Light Fury. And Grimmel. I saw it.” Astrid could feel little beyond the rapid clap of her heart against her ribcage, and she thought it might snap the bones. “She– she was going to save you. You were holding on to her, and she would have saved you. Except then you let go, so she could go save Toothless instead of you, and we all just– _stood_ there, and watched you fall.” Her voice felt frail in her throat. “How could you do that to me, Hiccup?”

“I had to save him.” Hiccup’s, too, was weak.

“No, you didn’t. You _chose_ to save him and you _chose_ to let yourself die and you didn’t think for a _second_ about what that would do to everyone who loves you,” she snapped. “To _me,_ Hiccup. I thought you were _dead._ ”

“That’s not fair.” Hiccup sounded as though he was fighting something in his throat.

“You’re right, it’s not.”

“Astrid.”

“If you want to marry me then prove it. Ask.”

“Astrid, are you seriously—”

“If you’re _ready.”_

“I think you’re the one who’s not ready,” muttered Hiccup, “if this is how you’re going to act.”

Astrid snorted, crossed her arms over her chest. Somewhere in the back of her brain she knew that she was being unreasonable, that she was being petty, but she had said it out loud now and she would not take it back. She and Hiccup had always fit together like puzzle pieces; this, she thought, was the place where they splintered— both too stubborn, both wearing their feelings on their sleeves when they shouldn’t and swallowing them down when it mattered. So she knew the answer when Hiccup asked her, “How can you not believe me?”

“Just tell me,” she said lowly.

“You’re being ridiculous, Astrid, seriously. Don’t put all of this on me. How could you not _know—_ ”

“How could—? I don’t know, Hiccup. Did you ever try, _dear Astrid, will you marry me?_ ”

He looked at her, just looked at her, his fractured expression and evergreen eyes. Astrid couldn’t bear to look back.

“You know what, forget it. I’m not doing this with you right now.”

She pushed herself up and turned on her heel, and when she heard him say her name again she kept walking. 

* * *

The afternoon turned over into evening and Hiccup didn’t come home. Astrid was glad for it. It gave her the quiet to sulk in front of the hearth— _their_ hearth, their house, how inconvenient it was to argue now that they shared a home— and think, picking apart their fight and piecing it back together in her mind. The clouded-over sky had burst open while she was prodding at the coals, and now the rain came down in sheets, lit in flashes by lightning and staccato claps of thunder that rattled the hut. She didn’t, to a point, worry about Hiccup. Astrid reveled in it, this non-worry. It felt like winning the argument. _Do you see? I wouldn’t be a good wife._

It turned out not to matter. All the lingering sweetness of the victory was swept out by cold relief when she heard knocking at the door.

“Oh,” she said as she flung it open, “hi, Gobber,” and tried to brush off her disappointment.

Gobber was storm-drenched and shaking. “Something’s happened to Hiccup.”

Astrid’s heart leapt to her throat. Then she leapt herself, out the door of their hut and down the hill to Gobber’s with him limping on her heels. He didn’t follow her inside, muttering something about giving them their privacy. Astrid hardly noticed. All she noticed was the breakneck beat of her heart in her chest as she pushed open the door.

“Went out in the lightning storm,” Hiccup croaked when he saw her. “Metal leg. Pretty stupid of me, huh?”

“You idiot,” Astrid breathed. She fell to her knees beside him and shoved hard at his chest. “You stupid, knuckleheaded _moron_ , you complete and utter—”

Hiccup was laughing weakly when she caught his face in her hands, touching her rain-slick forehead to his. Of _course_ Hiccup would go and get himself struck by lightning twice in his stupid life. She kissed him, soft and open-mouthed. It was a kiss of _I’m sorry_ , a kiss of _you’re okay_ , a kiss of _forgive me, I was an idiot, I don’t want to be without you, I’m so sorry, forgive me._

Hiccup’s fingers found the nape of her neck, the weight of her braid. He kissed back.

She wound her arms around him properly once they broke apart and tucked her head beneath his chin. She could hear the steady pace of his heartbeat like this, her ear against his chest. Astrid wanted to listen to it for the rest of her life. The thought struck her suddenly, like lighting, and as she began to picture it she found warmth gathering in her chest. The rest of her life. Her and Hiccup and his heartbeat. _Yes, that._ She wanted to fall asleep to this rhythm, wanted to set it racing and wanted to slow it down, wanted to touch her palm to it when she needed to remind herself of what was real in the world, and what was real was _Hiccup_ , his heartbeat and the gap between his teeth and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned at her, and suddenly everything that had mattered so much before was blurred in her mind’s eye, so that nothing was as clear or mattered as much as this. And suddenly, irreversibly, the rest of her life felt real. Like she could reach out and touch it, the way she could reach out and touch Hiccup’s heartbeat.

Astrid tightened her arms around his waist and lifted her head from his chest to look up at him. _I want you, this, always._

“Marry me,” she murmured.

Hiccup gaped at her. “Are you serious?”

She leaned over him, looked him in his eyes. “Marry me, Hiccup.” She kissed him, and then she asked him again, and again, even after he had whispered _yes_ against her cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the second part of this is on its way later this week, stay tuned


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> see tag "domestic fluff"

The talk that had to come after came in fits and starts.

First, the night of the storm, the night of the _yes._ “I shouldn’t have said all that,” Astrid whispered to the crook of his neck. “It was– pretty mean.”

She felt Hiccup drop his chin to the crown of her head. “Wouldn’t be you if it wasn’t pretty mean.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to apologize,” she muttered, and he laughed a little, deep in his chest against hers. 

“Okay,” he said. “In that case, I’m sorry too.”

She hummed and closed her eyes. It was quieter now, calmer, the storm petering out as nightfall drew over Berk. All that lingered of it now was the patter of rain against the thatched roof of Gobber’s hut, Astrid’s damp hair sending chills down her spine, the weak shudder of Hiccup’s fingers drawing circles at the nape of her neck. She’d make him stay here at Gobber’s tonight. Hiccup would push himself to death’s door if she didn’t pull him back sometimes.

(Astrid didn’t end up leaving, either. Instead she fell asleep to the sound of the rain and Hiccup’s sigh against her temple.)

* * *

“Maybe you shouldn’t have said it,” said Hiccup the next morning, “but you were still kind of right.”

Astrid tugged her comb through her hair, working out a stubborn tangle at the back of her neck that she couldn’t quite see in her mirror. “Which part?”

“About when I let go.”

“Hiccup–”

“No, Astrid, I... I have to tell you–” Hiccup blew out a breath. Astrid could see him in the mirror, elbows on his knees and jaw tight as he sat at the edge of their bed. Very softly he said, “I’m not sorry I did it.”

Astrid’s comb snagged in her hair, the sting of it sending an ache down her scalp. 

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he pushed on, “I’m so sorry for that. But if I hadn’t done it, if he’d died instead of me– that would’ve killed me, too.”

Astrid had told Hiccup once, years ago, that she couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. The difference now was that she _could–_ that she’d done it as she watched him fall from the sky, that she’d done it just yesterday, in the breathless moments before she slammed open the door of Gobber’s hut and sank into his arms, safe and alive and _here._ Astrid knew why it still knocked the breath from her lungs, why it burst into her nightmares even when he slept beside her. Some part of her had known he would let go before he did. He was _Hiccup–_ Hiccup who loved so fiercely, Hiccup who felt everything so deeply. Astrid had known that a long time, too, of course, but sometimes it still shocked her how much it didn’t scare him to leave his heart unhidden. She loved him for that. 

It occurred to Astrid then that this didn’t scare her anymore, either.

She gave up on the knot in her hair and twisted back to look at Hiccup for real, holding up her comb. “Will you help me?”

A shimmer of surprise swam across his face before he knelt behind her. The warmth of him so near curled down Astrid’s spine, and so did the brush of his fingers across the skin of her neck, the teeth of the comb against her head as he worked it down. She let her eyes close. 

“I would’ve done the same, you know,” she said. It came out quiet. “If it was Stormfly.”

“I know,” he said. “But that’s because you’re insanely loyal, Astrid. _I_ just– didn’t think.”

“You acted on instinct.”

"Still, I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're sorry." 

He was twisting a piece of her hair absentmindedly between his fingers, the handsome line of his brow creasing, the way it did when he was trying to say something difficult. Astrid waited, watching him in the mirror. Finally he said, “I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re not a priority to me. You're one of the most important people in my life."

Astrid gave up trying to meet his eyes in the mirror and craned her neck to look at him over her shoulder. “It’s not a hierarchy, Hiccup. It’s not Toothless or me. I shouldn’t have said that, it was unfair.”

“Yeah, how unfair of you to expect me to consider your feelings before I make a decision that will mess up our future.”

They’d promised it to each other ages ago, but the thought of _our future_ still sent a flutter through her stomach. She grinned. “How selfish of me.”

Hiccup laid the comb aside, but his hands stayed in her hair, smoothing down the length of it. “I really am sorry, Astrid,” he murmured. “For hurting you, I mean.”

She leant back into his chest, head falling against his shoulder. “Sorry I yelled at you.”

“Deserved it.”

“Only, like, twenty percent of it.”

“Twenty-five.”

 _“Twenty–?_ Thor’s sake, Hiccup, it’s not a negotiation–”

Hiccup was laughing into her hair; he’d wrapped an arm around her waist, which she hadn’t noticed him do until he grasped her a little tighter to him. She couldn’t quite see his grin as she watched him through the mirror, but she could see it crinkling the corners of his eyes, could picture it gap-toothed and beaming at the back of her head. _There you are,_ she thought. No, she couldn’t bear to picture it, a future where Hiccup wasn’t _here–_ in the mornings when she couldn’t tug the tangles out of her hair, in the evenings when she wanted to be held, on the days that they fought and after they made up. After hard choices. 

“Hey,” she heard him say. “Are we good?”

He was looking up at her now, through the mirror. Astrid saw the earnestness of his gaze, the warmth in it. She loved him. She did. The thought of it hooked in her heart. “Yeah.”

* * *

She heard his limp that night before she saw it, the steady click-step slowed to a scrape of metal against hardwood. Maybe it was the cold air; maybe lingering pains from the lightning shock last week; maybe he’d just had a long day. In any case, Hiccup was dragging his foot and wincing as he made it to their living room, and Astrid was already unhooking the kettle from the fireplace to fill a bucket with heated water.

“You all right?” she asked as he sank down in his chair.

Hiccup nodded, but his brows were drawn tight when he reached for the straps on his prosthetic. Astrid batted his hands away, a palm on his knee as she made quick work of the buckles and the gears that kept the leg in place. A year or two ago he would’ve been shifting in his seat, uncomfortable about Astrid touching his injury, but a year or two ago they hadn’t been living together; the first thing she’d learned since then was that Hiccup wanted fiercely to be cared for, and the second was that he would never ask for it.

“Astrid, you don’t have to do that,” he murmured.

“It’s okay.” She dropped a kiss to his knee. “I got it.”

He still hissed through gritted teeth as she eased the prosthetic off. The scars beneath it were pink and irritated under her fingers. Astrid found herself shaking her head and tutting, a reaction she would’ve been embarrassed about if this was anybody other than Hiccup. “You gotta start keeping off your feet,” she told him.

“Okay, Gothi.” A crooked smile lit Hiccup’s face when she glanced up at him. “What’s gotten into you?”

Astrid set his prosthetic aside. “I’m working on being wifely,” she said lightly, but she would have done it even if she wasn’t.

Hiccup hummed. She dragged the bucket beneath his stump, nudged him to lower his leg until his reddened skin met the water. When she glanced up at him again his eyes had fallen closed, head bowed, a slow exhale parting his lips. Maybe just a long day, then. She thumbed over his kneecap. Even here the bones were sharp beneath the leather of his trousers.

When he spoke again it was quietly. “Hey, can I ask you something?” 

“Sure.”

“Earlier, when you were having doubts about getting married… It wasn’t just about the dragons, was it? You said part of it was because I’m chief, and you didn’t really want to be part of that.”

“Well, yeah, Hiccup.” Astrid fell back from her haunches to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of him. “Getting married wouldn’t change much for you. But for me…”

The wife of the chief. Hostessing. Ceremonies. Heirs. _Keeping up appearances,_ Valka had told her once. She pictured herself, hunched and gray and lightless, all the fire she’d once poured into battle plans and axe throwing and dragon racing snuffed out by the duty of being Hiccup’s permanent plus-one. Especially now, without the dragons around, without the whisper of enemies lurking around the next corner…

It was terribly selfish, to think of her marriage to Hiccup as a loss of her freedom, especially when he himself was shouldering a hundred responsibilities he’d never asked for. But Astrid wasn’t so naive as to pretend that being his wife wouldn’t change the way Berk looked at her. That she wouldn’t need to act the part.

“Being the chief’s wife isn’t the same as just being a wife,” she said finally. “It’s– different responsibilities. Different duties.”

“That you don’t want to do.”

She rolled her lip between her teeth. “It’s a ceremonial position, Hiccup, I’m not meant to actually _do_ anything that matters.”

“That’s yakshit,” said Hiccup. “You do plenty.”

“Yeah, as your general. As your wife I’m just there to… cook and host parties and make babies.”

“I’d rather not have you be the one who cooks, darling.”

“So who’s gonna feed our kids when your meetings run late?”

She didn’t miss the jerk of his shin in the water when _kids_ left her mouth, but he covered it up hastily with, “I’m never going to make you do stuff you don’t want to, Astrid. You’ll still be _you.”_

And that was the problem, wasn’t it– that Astrid would rather throw an axe than a party, but if Berk needed her to look pretty and stand at Hiccup’s side she’d do it without a heartbeat’s hesitation. Where did that leave her?

She thought about that morning she’d won the dragon race, the day before Stoick had died, when Hiccup had told her he’d succeed his father in the chiefdom. _It’s not me, Astrid,_ he’d said. The look on his face, how reluctant he’d been– she hadn’t understood then how he’d turn away an honor like that, how he’d turn away power. She’d thought it was a Hiccup thing. She hadn’t been thinking about everything it would change for him. 

But that morning was a lifetime ago. Things were different. _Astrid_ was different. She thought she understood Hiccup a little better now. She looked at him, and she knew he understood, too.

“Fine,” said Hiccup when she didn’t reply. “Then what if...”

“What if what.”

“Don’t just be my wife. Be chief.”

The snort leapt from her throat before she could reel it back. “Instead of you? You don’t hate your job _that_ much, babe.”

“No, I mean– we could share. Split duties. Both be chief. Then you’d be doing things you actually care about, and I could be around more, if someday we have— If we both worked…”

There must’ve been hesitation on her face, because he trailed off, one dark brow lifting. “You want me to be your co-chief,” said Astrid, slow.

“If you think it’s a dumb idea–”

“No!”

The other eyebrow joined its twin. “No?”

“No. I’d love that. Hiccup, that would be perfect, if we could do that.”

“What’s with the _if?”_

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed that I’m a woman–”

“Funny enough I have–”

“–and having two chiefs is not exactly the tradition.”

 _“Astrid. ”_ There was the ghost of a smile nudging at Hiccup’s mouth as he caught her cheek and looked at her, lighting his whole face, his kind eyes. “You’re talking about the people who opened their homes to dragons because of a couple of kids. The people who packed up and left their ancestral land because they trusted that there was something better out there. This is still _Berk._ We know a thing or two about untraditional.”

“You say that stuff like they came up with it themselves.” Astrid rose to her feet to perch herself on the arm of Hiccup’s chair, swinging both legs over his lap and winding an arm around his neck. “That was all you.”

“It was all of us,” he said.

Astrid thought about that, about Hiccup and _all of us_ and how they’d once both stood so outside the type of life they were about to jump into. She felt Hiccup settle his head against her shoulder, his hair silk-soft beneath her chin. He said, “I always kind of thought you’d be a better chief than me.”

“Not better.” Astrid grinned and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Just different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading this insanely self-indulgent quarantine time passer ❤️ comments and kudos are always much loved!

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr [@gaygfs](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gaygfs)


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